Docs and Taxes
To the filmmakers in our readership- this might be of some interest to you come next year at “income tax time”. Yes, it is from an American perspective but a) some of our readers are U.S. citizens and b) Canadians shouldn’t feel too smug: our current government is unlikely to go after large corporations and it is very ambivalent about the arts and non-mainstream journalism. If Revenue Canada is trying to make itself look busy they might just decide to try some of the tactics that the IRS is presently pursuing. Paul Devlin’s article at the website of Filmmaker magazine: Why Filmmaking Cannot be a Hobby, comes from his encounters with the tax people questioning his filmmaking activity as a legitimate business and not just a pastime. He is writing largely about documentary filmmaking but any independent producer or artist should find his experience and his points on how to deal with this problem applicable to themselves.
